Actually USING it!

This is a pile of leftover binding strips that I sewed together at one point, on one of my many attempts to use up some scraps.

And they just sat there…

Grabbed one and a piece of “other scrap” and wondered if this is something I want to do…

Or the simple, traditional looking rail-fence style?

Do I want to use them in a more improv way? Grabbed two, gave them cross cut slices and had a couple of okay looking rectangles.

And using four different blocks, which required a little more work to get them together. Let me show you. When you cut and sew the first half, the seams come out very uneven.

In order to sew the halves back together, you need to have a plan and give yourself a straight edge to go by. You can lay them out and cut them individually or you can stack and trim one side and use that as your straight edge guide.

Flip and sew right along that edge for a nice, straight seam. Then you can trim the other side–or not, depending on how picky you are about seam allowances. I have to admit that I trim!

And that gave me four very busy blocks…maybe too busy to make a whole quilt out of…?

How ’bout trying it with a chunk of “other scrap” fabric?

Not a huge improvement and probably not worth scrounging for chunks of more plain fabric. BUT…I think I have a chunk of map fabric left from another project that might work if I throw these all together in cross-cut squares and rectangles. The map fabric could be sashing.

In any event, this pile of scrap has now made it to the top of my cutting table and will not be returning to the shelf! I will stick to my resolve of use it and get it out of here!

Aaaaaand…every time I move stuff around I find other good stuff. My newest found treasures are a coule of dyed pieces of lace in red and orange. I immediately thought they might be the happy solution to my workshop/bias tape project…

and I have more lace that I can easily dye if I need it! Yep–I like it!

There are some more artful projects that I’d like to do, but I want to have thinking time as I work on those. I have another teaching trip to make before that happens, so I’ll try to work on scrap reduction in the short times in between.

People often have a word of the year–mine looks like it’s ‘reduction’—in all areas!

Oh-oh-oh—I totally forgot about my friend Mary Hogan’s book! It’s called String Quilt Style and the cover quilt is one I’ve wanted to make…and it’s totally perfect for these blocks!

I’m not sure if I’ll use a single background color, for I have no large amount of any single fabric. If I have to buy more fabric, I will, but it will be a defeat in the reduction area. I will try to improvise something appropriate first!